This is my personal opinion and people are welcome to disagree, but I would 100% avoid taking a course with Professor Schlanger.
While I believe she is very knowledgeable and engaging, particuarly in the area of prisons, her abusive conduct towards students is unacceptable. She makes students feel uncomfortable in class when she cold calls them and then berates them for being wrong. She severely lacks social intelligence and is extremely unkind to the point I have heard she has made several students cry in office hours. To add, she also assigns an extreme amount of reading in relation to credit hours.
Just wanted to leave a counterpoint to the other review. Professor Schlanger is one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. She makes material come alive because she truly cares about it. Yeah, she doesn’t sugarcoat things. When you’re wrong, she says you’re wrong. It’s a very northeast mindset of being good rather than being nice. An example: she was the only one of my 1L professors to actually give individual feedback on her assignments. I’ll take that over handholding.
I had her for Torts. I found the reading workload to be very fair. She used teaching strategies on occasion (ex: think-pair-share, discuss in groups, providing model answers), which stood out in law school as a positive. I never found her cruel, but I don’t think she always read the room accurately (ex: not picking up on the fact that a student was stressed during a cold call). She had a wry sense of humor but didn’t target students with it. More, it appeared when she was discussing cases. Overall, I found the class engaging and mildly stressful. I can completely understand where other reviewers are coming from though–both the more positive and more negative. Hopefully this review gives others a sense of how they’d respond to Schlanger’s teaching style.
I had Schlanger for 1L Torts (Winter 2019) and it was not a good experience. I actually liked how she structured the class and that we spent time discussing the intersection of economics and tort law. I learned a lot about how to think about the greater incentives structure of the legal system that I continued to apply in other courses.
On the other hand, she was so disrespectful and rude, especially to students of color, it was so cringy to watch. She didn’t call on many brown students because she was afraid of mispronouncing their name (we know this because she actually admitted it to a student, because she was proud of this decision). Pretending a student does not exist because you can’t pronounce their name is not the correct solution. She also told a student her name was spelled wrong after Schlanger said it wrong. Worst of all, she was aggressive and disrespectful to students of color during cold calls, she would push back and make them feel dumb in a way that she doesn’t with white students. I understand that her research is in mass incarceration, but that doesn’t absolve her of treating POC with respect in her daily life. I know there’s a strong contingency of white women who love her, but there is also a strong contingency of POC who have some terrible stories about her (in class, office hours, and lunch talks).
I think she’s capable of being a great professor, she just really needs to learn to check her bias.
I’m adding a quick review, in case someone ever looks at this, to essentially note that the above reviews look about right… except for reviews re: POC students, which I’m not in a position to assess one way or another.
But I do think that Professor Schlanger makes a conscious effort to appear more considerate. It is very obviously a conscious effort, in that she is obviously restraining herself at times, but I think that a conscious effort to be thoughtful should be commended. Otherwise, yes, she is not a naturally soothing person, she is very demanding and arguably controlling, but she is also extremely knowledgeable and competent. She earned every bit of her accolades, and it’s very possible that she had to be tough to ascend in her profession, as a woman – who don’t get the same luxury of being softies, but also get criticized for being too prickly.
Altogether, if anyone ever reads this, I think you know from the above reviews, generally, what type of professor you’re getting, I think she’s made a conscious effort to be better, but I think to some extent this is who she is. Do what is best for you when choosing courses. There’s no honor in choosing “tough” professors you won’t mesh with, but some students will certainly thrive with her – just like any professor. Again, I will note that is certainly competent; she didn’t clerk with RBG by luck.
MLaw Prof Reviews
This is my personal opinion and people are welcome to disagree, but I would 100% avoid taking a course with Professor Schlanger.
While I believe she is very knowledgeable and engaging, particuarly in the area of prisons, her abusive conduct towards students is unacceptable. She makes students feel uncomfortable in class when she cold calls them and then berates them for being wrong. She severely lacks social intelligence and is extremely unkind to the point I have heard she has made several students cry in office hours. To add, she also assigns an extreme amount of reading in relation to credit hours.
Just wanted to leave a counterpoint to the other review. Professor Schlanger is one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. She makes material come alive because she truly cares about it. Yeah, she doesn’t sugarcoat things. When you’re wrong, she says you’re wrong. It’s a very northeast mindset of being good rather than being nice. An example: she was the only one of my 1L professors to actually give individual feedback on her assignments. I’ll take that over handholding.
I also had Schlanger for 1L and agree with the first review. This is a professor to avoid.
I had her for Torts. I found the reading workload to be very fair. She used teaching strategies on occasion (ex: think-pair-share, discuss in groups, providing model answers), which stood out in law school as a positive. I never found her cruel, but I don’t think she always read the room accurately (ex: not picking up on the fact that a student was stressed during a cold call). She had a wry sense of humor but didn’t target students with it. More, it appeared when she was discussing cases. Overall, I found the class engaging and mildly stressful. I can completely understand where other reviewers are coming from though–both the more positive and more negative. Hopefully this review gives others a sense of how they’d respond to Schlanger’s teaching style.
I had Schlanger for 1L Torts (Winter 2019) and it was not a good experience. I actually liked how she structured the class and that we spent time discussing the intersection of economics and tort law. I learned a lot about how to think about the greater incentives structure of the legal system that I continued to apply in other courses.
On the other hand, she was so disrespectful and rude, especially to students of color, it was so cringy to watch. She didn’t call on many brown students because she was afraid of mispronouncing their name (we know this because she actually admitted it to a student, because she was proud of this decision). Pretending a student does not exist because you can’t pronounce their name is not the correct solution. She also told a student her name was spelled wrong after Schlanger said it wrong. Worst of all, she was aggressive and disrespectful to students of color during cold calls, she would push back and make them feel dumb in a way that she doesn’t with white students. I understand that her research is in mass incarceration, but that doesn’t absolve her of treating POC with respect in her daily life. I know there’s a strong contingency of white women who love her, but there is also a strong contingency of POC who have some terrible stories about her (in class, office hours, and lunch talks).
I think she’s capable of being a great professor, she just really needs to learn to check her bias.
I’m adding a quick review, in case someone ever looks at this, to essentially note that the above reviews look about right… except for reviews re: POC students, which I’m not in a position to assess one way or another.
But I do think that Professor Schlanger makes a conscious effort to appear more considerate. It is very obviously a conscious effort, in that she is obviously restraining herself at times, but I think that a conscious effort to be thoughtful should be commended. Otherwise, yes, she is not a naturally soothing person, she is very demanding and arguably controlling, but she is also extremely knowledgeable and competent. She earned every bit of her accolades, and it’s very possible that she had to be tough to ascend in her profession, as a woman – who don’t get the same luxury of being softies, but also get criticized for being too prickly.
Altogether, if anyone ever reads this, I think you know from the above reviews, generally, what type of professor you’re getting, I think she’s made a conscious effort to be better, but I think to some extent this is who she is. Do what is best for you when choosing courses. There’s no honor in choosing “tough” professors you won’t mesh with, but some students will certainly thrive with her – just like any professor. Again, I will note that is certainly competent; she didn’t clerk with RBG by luck.